The following item from the Johannesburg business daily Business Day was seen on AllAfrica.com at http://allafrica.com/stories/200502240312.html .
Black Languages Can Bridge Racial Divide - Zuma Business Day (Johannesburg) http://www.bday.co.za/ February 24, 2005 Posted to the web February 24, 2005 Hopewell Radebe Johannesburg WHITE children should be encouraged and offered the opportunity to learn at least one indigenous language at school in their provinces, said Deputy President Jacob Zuma this week. This would increase white children's general understanding of black people's heritage, identity and cultures, he said. Zuma said that such an effort would also foster harmonious race relations in SA. Zuma was addressing the Pan-South African Language Board at a function in Pretoria on Tuesday celebrating the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's International Mother Language Day. Zuma said that learning indigenous languages would open up a whole new world and future for white children, preparing them to "connect with their compatriots in their mother tongues". But he acknowledged that government would have to "find resources" to assist schools to offer indigenous languages. The proposed effort was the best practical way for government to help SA's indigenous languages to survive, he said. Zuma said it was unfortunate that Setswana-speaking children were generally not able to study Setswana at predominantly English or English-Afrikaans medium schools. Unlike the apartheid regime, which used language as an instrument to divide and subjugate the black majority, the present government wished to use it "to promote better understanding of all people's cultures". He said languages had always been central to sociopolitical and economic relations in the country - and that this was one reason the constitution espoused the principle of respect for all 11 official languages, requiring that they be treated equally before the law and in all state institutions. Zuma said government had to find ways to bridge the gap created in the past, where two of the 11 official languages were fully developed and enjoyed dominance over others. Efforts to accelerate the promotion of and development of the other nine languages needed to be speeded up, he said. He urged the mass media to establish publications in indigenous languages. Media owners in KwaZulu-Natal who ran successful commercial Zulu newspapers such as Ilanga, Isolezwe and Umafrikahad demonstrated that there was a viable market in SA for indigenous-language publications, the deputy president said. -- ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater? Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good! http://us.click.yahoo.com/pkgkPB/SOnJAA/Zx0JAA/TpIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
